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Preparation, Participation, Assessment, and Messiness

Preparation, Participation, Assessment, and Messiness. TA Training Second Meeting September 18, 2019. Last Time. Roles and Responsibilities Yes: Leading discussion sections, answering questions, grading No: Running errands, Babysitting… No dating your students!

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Preparation, Participation, Assessment, and Messiness

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  1. Preparation, Participation, Assessment, and Messiness TA Training Second Meeting September 18, 2019

  2. Last Time • Roles and Responsibilities • Yes: Leading discussion sections, answering questions, grading • No: Running errands, Babysitting… • No dating your students! • Creating a Welcoming Environment • Create a feeling of community • Not using terms that aren’t yet covered in the curriculum • Apply the same rules to everyone • Insist on decency • No flaming, watch for microaggressions and bias

  3. Today’s Agenda • Being Prepared • Preparing for a discussion sections and office hours • Classroom Management • Motivating and engaging students • Unruly students • Assessment • Dealing with grade disputes • The importance of rubrics • Human Messiness • Life affects our perspective • Life affects our ability to learn/meet deadlines • Cheating • And life • How to find it • What to do about it

  4. Time Management

  5. Being Prepared

  6. Determine Content • Consider your learning goals for that section • Determine what material will be covered • Be certain to motivate the importance of the topic! • Create a timeline • Write out speaking notes, questions to ask, problems to demonstrate • NOTE: Do not be afraid to vary from your pre-set presentation

  7. Find the Student Mindset • Who is your audience? • Ensure that you know student context • Complete (or review) reading assignments • Complete (or review) homeworks, programming assignments, and their solutions (if available) • Review recent course material • Allows you to better identify sources of confusion and other pitfalls • True even and especially for introductory courses • Be careful about assuming intro courses are so easy you don’t need to prepare (more in a minute)

  8. Identify Difficulties Consider the struggles you had learning the topic • How easy was the topic when you first learned it? • Which parts were difficult? • What made those parts difficult? • What would have made it better?

  9. Eliminate Pitfalls Watch for knowledge leaps and built-in assumptions • You know the definition of idempotent---but do they? • You’ve heard of the knapsack problem---have they? • You know the difference between disk and memory---but do they? • Students should only be required to know material covered in the pre-requisites for the course.

  10. Decrease Monotony • Once you have set your material, consider if there might be a better way to learn it • In-class activities • YouTube videos • Look for real-world applications or tie ins • Find analogies that they will find relevant and/or interesting

  11. Are you prepared?

  12. Classroom Management

  13. Strategies for Motivating Students

  14. Strategies for Motivating Students • Challenge them • But provide help

  15. Strategies for Motivating Students • Challenge them • But provide help • Provide feedback • Timely, constructive, emphasize the Growth Mindset

  16. Strategies for Motivating Students • Challenge them • But provide help • Provide feedback • Timely, constructive, emphasize the Growth Mindset • Connect material to larger goals • Career, larger understanding

  17. Strategies for Motivating Students • Challenge them • But provide help • Provide feedback • Timely, constructive, emphasize the Growth Mindset • Connect material to larger goals • Career, larger understanding • Build rapport and community • Icebreakers, discussions, group work

  18. Strategies for Engaging Students • Asking questions • Students can volunteer to answer • Cold-calling is also an option • What about wrong answers? • Thumbs up/thumbs down • Get them to ask questions • Working problems together • In-class activities

  19. Losing Their Attention • Student attention wanders when: • They’re no longer following the lesson • They don’t believe they need to know the material • Discussion wanders off topic for too long • Electronics are out • They are tired/hungry/sad…

  20. Unruly Students • Best answer: these don’t exist because students learned manners before they got to you…

  21. Unruly Students • Best answer: these don’t exist because students learned manners before they got to you… • However: • Remain calm. You are a professional. Do not match the student’s emotion. • Ask them to please stop and to talk to you after class • As necessary, you may ask them to leave class • Report the incident to your supervising instructor • You are never expected to tolerate any sort of abuse: not name calling, not anger, not malicious rumors… • This is your place of work. You cannot and will not be asked to tolerate bad behavior.

  22. Assessment

  23. Goal: Assessing Learning Assessment tools, including in-class questions, projects, and exams: • Assess how well a student has learned a topic or set of topics • Also assess how well the topic(s) has been taught---by you and by the instructor!

  24. Exams • Step 1: Prepare Questions • What material do you want to test? • Was some part of the material more important than other parts? • Question content and difficulty should reflect any differences • Think through Bloom’s Taxonomy • Variety of question types: • Short answer, multiple choice (with multiple answers), fill in the blank, numeric, explain in plain English

  25. Exams • Step 2: Think through answers • Answer the questions yourself! • Is the question asked in such a way that you will get the answer you expect? • Step 3: Create rubric • Create sample criteria • Helps clarify the question • Be open to changing the rubric when you see student answers

  26. Exams • Step 4: Administering • Lessen anxiety as best you can • Welcome them • Maybe play music (in the beginning, not for the whole test!) • Room with double seating and continuous writing surfaces • Reduce distractions • Provide scratch paper (staple to exams) • Explain bathroom policy ahead of time

  27. Exams • Step 4: Administering • Increase fairness: • No questions(!?!) • Names only on front • Lessen cheating: • Assign random seats • Number exams • “Randomly” assign students to an exam • Post EID/test number chart outside class room • If you have more than one class taking the exam, request a uniform time • No hats, phone, earphones

  28. Grading • Prompt and Consistent • Use initial rubric, adjust as necessary • Be prepared for students to interpret a question differently from what you intended • Grade one question at a time • This allows you to get into a rhythm • Helps with consistency

  29. Regrading • Stick to the Rubric • This is why it is important you take time to get the rubric right and you have confidence in it • Fairness is key • If you do change the rubric, you will need to regrade everyone’s • Don’t get taken in by slick arguments • Written requests help with this • Don’t let students argue the rubric

  30. Now you try it…

  31. Human Messiness

  32. Perspectives • Be aware of student differences • Cultural differences due to race/ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic differences • Context differences due to hobbies (gamers? athletes? maintain own Linux system?), prior education (CS in HS?) • Be inclusive • Motivate all students • Questions from all students • Watch for micro-inequities • Food vs. bomb • Interruptions • Inappropriate jokes

  33. Privilege • Be aware of privilege • Gender • Socioeconomic • Racial/ethnic • Unpack the knapsack! • Provide encouragement • Imposter syndrome • Dunning-Kruger effect

  34. Roadbumps • Students’ outside lives continue • Things are not always as they seem • Low performance does not always imply a lack of caring or stupidity • May have non-academic problems • Student Emergency Services (SES) • 512-471-5017 • Student Disability Services (SDS) • Physical disabilities, ADHD, Depression, … • 512-471-6259 • Behavior Concern Advice Line (BCAL) • 512-232-5050

  35. Cheating • Squash cheating • Cheapens degree • Unfair to other students • Better if caught sooner rather than later • Find it using MOSS • Measure of Software Similarity from Stanford • Report cheating to Student Judicial Services • Suggest sanction • Talk to the instructor before you do anything.

  36. Cheating • Cheating does not mean the student is “bad” • Is often an act of desperation • Cultural differences • Talk to the student • Let the student know the action has consequences • Assure the student he/she can recover

  37. Scenarios andDifficult Conversations

  38. Thank you! We appreciate you coming.

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